


Secrets Don’t Make Friends

by kaitlyn_chronicles



Category: Glee, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Allen Twins, Amputation, Amputee Barry, Angst, Barry and Seb are twins, Bullies, Especially Barry, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, I’m mean to my main characters, Multi, Singing, Sometimes Barry just needs a hug ok, Tags will change as story progresses, and Sebastian, and barry and Marley are their cute selves, big brother seb, hunter isn’t a dick for once, lots And lots of singing, powers, teenage angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-05 09:55:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16365695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaitlyn_chronicles/pseuds/kaitlyn_chronicles
Summary: Barry and Sebastian are twins. They were separated after a tragedy, but another one will bring them together.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I know I should be updating my other series but I had to get this out. Enjoy!

Nora and Henry Allen were the perfect couple. Then, they had their twin boys and they were the perfect parents. The perfect family.

That all changed after the boys turned eleven. Barry and Sebastian Allen were both tucked into bed that night by their parents, smiling and laughing as Henry tickled them and Nora held them still. It was just like any other night. No one could have guessed what would happen next.

Barry was the first one awake. As soon as he saw the water lift from their fish tank, he ran over to his brother’s bed and shoved Sebastian awake. “Bassy!” he shouted. “Something's happening!”

The other boy sat up and looked around groggily. “What’s goin’ on?” Sebastian slurred. He looked like he was going to fall back to sleep, but then he noticed the fish tank and Barry’s panicked face.

Sebastian jumped out of bed and ran to the door, grabbing his brother’s arm and pulling him with. Together, they ran down the stairs. What they saw would cause them nightmares for the rest of their lives.

Their mother was surrounded by what looked like lightning. She was screaming at Henry and the boys to get out. Henry, who had just noticed them, placed his hands on their shoulders, one on Barry’s left and the other on Sebastian’s right. “Run boys, run!” he shouted.

Before they could react, the twins were swept up by a whirl of lightning and all of a sudden, they were on the street. Sebastian, recovering quicker than Barry, identified their friend’s house and started running in the direction of their own house, relieved to know where they were. Sebastian only got a few yards before he realized Barry wasn’t following him. 

The other twin was on the ground, eyes closed. Sebastian frantically tried to figure out what was wrong with him, but pulled his hands back when Barry groaned. “Dude,” Sebastian whispered, poking Barry in the ribs. “Are you alright?”

Barry let out a strangled noise of affirmation. “Just dizzy,” he wheezed. Sebastian wanted to laugh, but realized there were bigger worries than Barry being dizzy.

He grabbed his brother’s arm and sling it around his shoulders before guiding him to his feet. Barry groaned again. “Come on, Bar,” Sebastian pleaded. “Work with me here. We have to go.” He couldn’t stop thinking about what was going on before they were swept away. Were their parents okay?

Carefully but quickly, Sebastian drug Barry and himself back to their house. Barry had gotten more alert, but still weird. Something was definitely wrong with his head. He probably hit it on the pavement when he collapsed earlier. 

Sebastian was able to see the flashing lights before he saw the squad cars. As the twins came upon the house, all they could see was light and people. Uniformed officers were pulling their father out of the house. The man wasn’t struggling, but his face was grim.

”Dad?” Sebastian called. He moved himself and Barry closer to him.

Henry’s eyes searched the scene until he found where the voice came from. “Sebastian! Barry! Don’t go inside the house!” The police officers started forcing him into the back seat of a cruiser. “You hear me? Don’t go in-“ The rest of the sentence was cut off by the door slamming.

Curiosity and worry overcame Sebastian and he ran as fast as he could with Barry (which wasn’t very fast) into the house. Barry had started walking a bit better now, so the stairs to the front door weren’t a huge problem. None of the police officers paid them any attention. 

As the twins stumbled into the living room, Sebastian noticed a plastic tarp covering something in the middle of the room. Dread filled his heart. He and Barry loved watching crime shows and, well, this was something they’d seen before.

Helping Barry to the floor, the duo knelt by the tarp. Sebastian hesitantly pulled back one of the corners. On the floor was their mother, completely still and eyes closed. 

“Mom?” Barry’s voice was quiet.

”Momma!” Sebastian said with a little more force. “Momma, please!” 

Arms engulfed the boys from behind. It was Joe West, a detective and the father of Iris, one of their best friends. The man pulled the covering back over Nora Allen’s face and scooped the boys closer to his chest. 

A numbing sensation spread throughout Sebastian’s body. Their mother was dead and for some reason, their dad had been taken by the police. Everything was falling apart. And on top of it, Barry had a concussion or something. 

The twins allowed themselves to be led away from their mother’s body and out the door to a waiting ambulance. “I think he hit his head,” Sebastian weakly told the paramedics. The medics nodded and started working on Barry. After a couple minutes, Sebastian was handed a shock blanket and a bottle of water. The medics concluded that Barry had a minor concussion and would need a little bit of rest before he started feeling normal. Sebastian wanted to tell them that neither of them would ever feel normal again.

Joe joined the two at the back of the ambulance after the last of the squad cars had left. The other officers had wanted to talk to the kids, but Joe convinced them to give the twins a night to process before they start coming after them with their questions. “You boys are coming home with me,” Joe stated softly. “We can leave whenever you’re ready.”

Sebastian looked into the older man’s eyes. “I’m ready,” he said firmly. He then looked to Barry, who had fallen asleep and was using Sebastian’s shoulder as a pillow. “And I think he’s ready too.”

Joe smiled faintly. “Then let’s go.”

Sebastian hopped from the ambulance to the pavement after Joe carefully lifted Barry. The sleeping child barely stirred. Sebastian walked slowly to the car and slid into the back seat. Joe was there a few seconds later with Barry. The latter was only awake long enough to scoot from the door side to the middle so he could be close to Sebastian. By the time Joe got into the driver’s seat, Barry was already passed out. 

Sebastian wanted to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was his mother. He knew Barry would have the same problems once he was actually in the right mindset to process, but for now, he was just happy his brother was relaxed.

Eventually, exhaustion took over Sebastian’s body and he was out like a light. Joe looked back at the twins, heart melting at the sight. Barry head was resting on Sebastian’s shoulder again and Sebastian’s head was on top of Barry’s. The warmth in his heart immediately ceased when he realized that these boys had just lost their mother and most likely their father. Their whole childhood could be ruined by this one event. Joe vowed then and there that he would do everything in his power to make sure that didn’t happen.

In the end, their childhoods were ruined anyways. The state wouldn’t let Joe have both of them, worried that their fantasies of the “lightening man” would feed off each other until both boys went insane. So, Joe got Barry and Sebastian went to the Smythes, another family friend. This usually wouldn’t be a bad thing, except the Smythes lived in Ohio, more than a thousand miles away from their old home in Colorado. When the twins had found out, they had panicked and tried to run away. They made it all the way to Star City and even stayed a few nights with one of their friends, a teenager named Oliver Queen. When Robert and Moira found out, they immediately called Joe and let him know they were safe. 

After that little stunt, they were separated almost immediately. They got two days to spend with each other before Sebastian was officially the Smythes’. When the time came to say goodbye, everyone was a wreck. Iris and Barry were hanging on Sebastian the entire time and refused to let him go until the social worker literally pried them away. 

And so, the Allen twins were separated. Barry stayed in Central City and lived with Joe and Iris West. Sebastian moved all the way to Ohio with the Smythes and their daughter, a young girl named Savannah that was the same age as the twins. Sebastian never got to say goodbye to his father, who was stuck in Iron Heights for a crime he didn’t commit.

But the Allen family trouble didn’t stop there.


	2. The Accident

Barry rushed around the house, a frantic look on his face. Joe and Iris watched him from their spots in the couch, both sporting amused smiles as the fifteen-year-old ran himself ragged looking for materials for a chemistry project. 

After his second trip past the living room, Iris started laughing, unable to contain it. Barry turned quickly. “Why are you laughing at me?” He demanded.

Iris dropped the grin. “I’m not,” she said, trying as hard as she could to keep a straight face. “How about, instead of worrying yourself over a project that’s not due until next month, we all go out to eat and spend some time together.”

”Woah, woah, woah,” Joe said. “Who’s buying? Because it certainly isn’t going to be me, not when it wasn’t my idea.”

“Dad...” Iris warned forcefully. 

Joe threw his hands up. “Alright, fine,” he conceded. “But I’m not picking. And we’re not going to Big Belly. That crap is terrible for us.”

After several ideas were thrown around, they finally decided on the new pizza place near the park. Joe and Barry sat up front while Iris stretched out in the back. As they drove, Joe noticed that Barry was still acting anxious. Trust that kid to be nervous about a project that was a month away in his favorite class. Joe placed a hand on Barry’s knee, successfully stopping its shaking. “Calm down Bar,” Joe soothed. “It’s all gonna be alr-“

”Dad watch out!” Iris screamed, cutting her dad off. But it was too late. A truck had run a red light and crashed into the driver side half of the car. Barry’s head was knocked against the window from the force of the vehicle. All he felt was pain before he fell unconscious. 

He didn't stay under for very long. When he awoke, he was still in the car, which was turned with Barry’s side resting on the ground. Blinking away some of the fuzziness in his vision, Barry took a second to check for injuries. Definitely a concussion at least. His wrist also hurt like hell (probably broken), but nothing compared to the awful pain radiating from his right leg. He couldn’t see it because it was getting smashed in the space between the door and the seat. Distantly, Barry heard sirens and people shouting.

Looking around as much as he could in his awful position, he noticed Iris and Joe. Quickly, fear overtook most of the pain he was feeling. Joe was unconscious and had a nasty cut on the side of his face, which was the only part of him Barry could see. The rest of him was being completely crushed by the steering wheel and the dented door. Iris wasn’t much better. In fact, she was worse. She was nearly dangling from her seat belt, bent over at a weird angle. She hadn’t been wearing the part of her seatbelt that went across her chest because she had been laying across the backseat with her legs pointing to Barry’s side. Iris was bleeding from small cuts on any of her exposed skin, along with deep cuts on her hairline and close to her eye. Barry immediately knew she was dead, or close to it. They needed help fast. 

Luckily, rescue efforts began within minutes. Soon, paramedics were opening Iris’s door, as it was the only door they could get open. They pulled her out first, followed by Barry and Joe. In his groggy state, Barry couldn’t understand a lot of the things going on around him, but the words, “They’re dead,” stuck out in his mind. At the time, he couldn’t comprehend what they meant. Who’s dead? Why? Those were his last thoughts before his vision went dark and he was out like a light.

The next day, Barry got his answers from his doctor. He’d woken up with a severe headache, as well as a couple other little pains here and there. He figured, once he saw the sterile hospital room around him, he was so doped up on painkillers that he could only feel a little bit of what was really going on.

The doctor was there when he woke up, a nice lady named Dr. Petty. She asked him some of the more standard questions before working up to the real one. “Do you remember what happened?”

Barry thought. Then he thought some more. All he could remember about the previous night was the truck and then nothing. When he told Dr. Petty this, she looked at him with big, sad doe eyes.

”I’m sorry, Barry,” she started. “But you’re foster father and sister were killed in the car accident. You were lucky enough to survive, but...”

 _But what?_ Barry thought. What could possibly be worse than what happened to Joe and Iris? His poor family. They deserved so much more. He should’ve died, not them. Nobody would miss him.

After hesitating, Dr. Petty finally finished her thought. “But there was some...extensive damage done to you’re right leg. We tried everything we could in emergency surgery last night but, uh, nothing really worked. So we...we had to amputate.”

Barry let that word roll around in his head. _Amputate_. Like, he didn’t have a leg anymore. As in, he literally couldn’t walk or run or do anything on his own anymore. And he didn’t have anyone to help him because everyone he loved was dead. Well, except Sebby, but he isn’t really able to help Barry with his problems.

Dr. Petty watched Barry with worry, not speaking until he seemed like he was ready. “You’ll stay here until you’re fully healed, and then you can start doing some therapy and all that when you’re better. We only had to amputate the part of your leg below the knee and you’re young, so you’re likely to move into a prosthetic within the coming months. But let’s not talk about that. I’m going to leave you with your thoughts so you can process.” She started to walk out, but turned back around. “If you need anything, press the button next to you and someone will come.” She left the room, but stopped once again just outside the doorway. “And before I forget, someone called your brother, Sebastian. He’ll be here sometime today. Get some rest, Barry. You need it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have nothing against Joe or Iris, but I have this weird desire to make my main character suffer, so...sorry Barry.


	3. Sebastian to the Rescue

True to the doctor’s words, Sebastian was sitting on the couch on the other side of Barry’s room when he awoke from his nap. When the other boy noticed him waking up, he immediately ran over to the plastic chair by the bed. “Barry!” Sebastian sighed in relief. He moved to give his twin a hug, but thought against it and grabbed Barry’s hand instead.

Upon seeing Sebastian, Barry’s eyes had started to tear up. Soon, the tears turned into full-on sobbing. Unsure how to respond, Sebastian wrapped Barry into a gentle hug, careful to avoid hurting him. Barry, on the other hand, threw caution to the wind and squeezed Sebastian closer to him. They stayed in the position for nearly five minutes before Barry pulled away slowly. “Thanks Seb,” he muttered.

Sebastian gave him a small smile. “Anything for you, little bro,” he joked. 

“We’ve already covered this. We don’t know who’s older, so you don’t get to call me that,” Barry sassed.

”Well, I have older brother-ish instincts, so don’t even try to say you’re the older one.”

Barry rolled his eyes. It was nice to talk to his twin, who he hadn’t seen in months. The last time they saw each other in person was before school started when the Smythes took Barry to Paris with them for summer vacation. Of course, he wished they were brought together for a better reason and not the death of his family. 

Those thoughts destroyed Barry’s decent mood. Eventually, he was going to have to face the fact that they were gone and weren’t coming back, but he didn’t want to do that now. Not while Seb would have to deal with him. 

Unfortunately, that whole “twins can read each other’s minds” thing seemed to apply to him and Sebastian. His brother looked at him sadly. “Talk to me, Bar,” he begged. “I know you want to.” Barry kept his mouth shut and his head down. “Alright. Then I want to talk about something else.”

Barry raised his head. “What?” He asked numbly.

”I talked with Jean and Alicia while I was waiting for you to wake up and we came up with an idea,” Sebastian explained. “And they’ve already agreed to this, so don’t flip out, okay?”

”Okay.”

”They want you to come live with us and go to school with me at Dalton.”

Barry nodded slowly. “I would be alright with that, I think,” he said. In fact, he was more than alright with it. After losing his mom and dad, and now Joe and Iris...he couldn’t imagine not being around Sebastian. 

Sebastian was about to respond, but stopped when Barry yawned. He smirked slightly. “I’m going to let you sleep, little bro. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Before he closed his eyes, Barry rolled them at his brother. “Don’t call me that,” he mumbled. Sebastian laughed silently. 

As Barry fell asleep, he thanked whatever higher power that was out there for letting him have Sebastian. If he didn’t...who knows what would happen. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short, I know. Also very rushed. This chapter was more of a filler chapter, but things will start picking up in the next one.


	4. Discharged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of the info I used in this chapter was found through some brief research and a few personal experiences with relatives in wheelchairs. So if I got something wrong please, please, please let me know! I don’t want to offend anybody!

Two weeks after the accident, Barry was completely done with being in the hospital. The food sucked, he couldn’t sleep without doctors checking in on him every hour, and people he didn’t even know were sending him cheesy get-well cards. Plus, the physical therapy was absolute crap. He had to relearn pretty much everything because his stupid leg had to be chopped off. He could barely move across the room on crutches even after a few days of straight practice, so he was going to have to use a wheelchair until he could figure it out. Sebastian was a nice presence to have, but that only went so far before Barry started getting angry and frustrated with himself.

 Despite sucking at pretty much everything in therapy, the doctors decided he was healthy enough to go to Ohio with Sebastian and start school there.

Barry was ecstatic. He’d still have to do physical and possibly mental therapy and all that in Westerville, but he wouldn’t be in Central City anymore. Everyone, even Barry himself, thought it was for the best. There were too many bad memories in Central. Henry had been hard to convince, but in the end he said yes too.

All day, doctors had been coming in to check on Barry, as if they were nervous he might suddenly drop to the floor screaming in pain. Of course, they had a reason to think that. The first time Barry had tried to use the bathroom by himself, he had slipped and nearly broken his already-sprained wrist. Barry flexed his fingers as he smiled slightly at the memory, but he was broken from his thoughts when Sebastian came bursting through the door with a wheelchair. Barry’s wheelchair. 

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” Sebastian demanded. He patted the seat of the chair. “Come on, little bro.”

Slowly, Barry dragged himself to the edge of the hospital bed and carefully raised himself into a standing position. Sebastian offered a hand to help him, which Barry gratefully accepted. He had been using a wheelchair since the surgery, but he still struggled with safely transferring from the bed to the chair by himself.

Barry lowered himself into the seat as gently as he could. Once he was sitting down, Sebastian wheeled him out of the room. With his sprained wrist, Barry was going to need his brother to push him around in the chair until he was healed enough to do it. Of course, Barry would eventually switch to crutches and hopefully a prosthesis within the next few months, so Sebastian wouldn’t have to help for long.

As they exited the room, a feeling of dread crept into Barry’s mind. After they left the hospital, he would have to go through the rest of his life without Joe and Iris. On top of that, he was moving away from his dad who, besides Bas, was his only family left. Even worse, he’d be moving into a new school where he had no friends (though he didn’t have many in Central City anyways) and he was missing a fucking leg. He’d be a social outcast in no time.

Barry clenched his fists as those thoughts circled his head, bombarding him and making him wish he could turn his brain off.

Sebastian, being the good brother he is, immediately noticed Barry’s mood when he failed to say goodbye to his favorite nurse as they passed her in the hallway. Luckily, they were the only ones in the elevator, so Sebastian could interrogate Barry all he wanted. 

“What’s wrong, Bar?” Sebastian asked calmly. “You’re finally getting released! You should be at least a little excited.”

Barry shook his head and stayed silent a moment before answering. “I know I should.” He swallowed audibly before continuing. “But I just...I don’t know what to expect now.”

Sebastian nodded his head in sympathy. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Barry opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off when the elevator dinged, announcing that they'd reached the ground floor. The twins left the small space and walked into a lobby that smelled like gross hospital food. They found Sebastian’s foster parents standing at the front desk filling out paperwork. 

Alicia waved when she saw the boys approaching. “Barry!” She greeted sweetly. Barry offered a small, insincere smile in return. Alicia’s grin faltered a tiny bit, but quickly regained her composure and acted like she hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. 

Jean came and clapped a hand on Barry’s shoulder. “Just finishing up all the papers,” he said happily. “You ready to go?”

Barry nodded and couldn’t help but chuckle at the ridiculousness of the man that had been taking care of Sebastian these past years. Jean was a burly, intimidating guy who stood at nearly six and a half feet tall, and yet, he had the attitude of a ten-year-old and the attention span of a goldfish. Somehow, he was also one of the best lawyers in the Ohio.

Alicia was the complete opposite. She was a short, stick-figured woman with fiery red hair and freckles covering her face. She seemed sweet and innocent, but once you got to know her, she was quite scary. When they all went to Paris together, Barry saw her get into a brawl with a big Parisian dude in the middle of a bar and she managed to win without a single bruise. That woman was a force to be reckoned with.

These would be the people taking care of Barry until he and Bas were eighteen. Barry couldn’t help but think that if it weren’t for him and his anxiety, that wouldn’t be the case. They wouldn’t have gotten in the car and crashed, he wouldn’t have lost a leg, and Joe and Iris wouldn’t be dead. As soon as he thought that, he finally understood. It was all his fault. Everything that had happened to him was brought on by his own stupid actions. If only he hadn’t been so worried about that damn science project...

 A sudden impact on his left side brought Barry out of his thoughts. A girl barreled into his wheelchair, sending them both crashing to the ground. Sebastian, who had been talking with his foster parents, was quickly at Barry’s side.

Barry groaned as a throbbing pain overtook his body. He lay of the ground for a few moments until some of the hospital staff came and helped him into his wheelchair. Sebastian checked over his brother thoroughly, make sure he was okay in the most annoying way possible. Barry brushed him off and instead watched as the girl that had run into him bounced up and continued running down the halls, only to be stopped in front of a door by a nurse.

Dejectedly, she turned and walked back into the lobby. When she saw Barry, who was still struggling to take deep breaths, her eyes widened and she walked a bit faster. She looked like she was going straight for Barry, but was cut off when Sebastian stepped in front of him protectively. 

“What are you gonna do?” Sebastian demanded. “Knock him over again?” 

The girl shifted uncomfortably before she blurted out, “I’m so sorry! I was trying to see my mom. She just had a stroke and I got called in the middle of school, so I sped all the way down here and all I could think about was how much I needed to see her and I ran into you and I didn’t even apologize-God, I’m an awful person-and then I couldn’t even see her because of that stupid nurse and now I’m over here and I’m just babbling because that’s what I do and it’s just-“

Barry stopped her rambling by holding one hand up. The girl stopped talking immediately and shuffled nervously. By now, Alicia and Jean had joined the twins in listening to the girl. “Look,” Barry told her. “I understand, so no harm done. But, uh, next time you’re running in a hospital, not that I’m assuming there’ll be a next time, just be more careful. After all, there’s people like me around here that can’t really avoid people who are running at them.”

The girl nodded quickly. “Of course,” she promised and then gasped. “Oh, and one more thing. My name is Marley Rose, just in case your hurt and want to, I don’t know, press charges or something? I mean, I’m not saying that you’re the kind of person that would do that, but I’m not saying that you wouldn’t do that, so really-“

This time, Sebastian cut her off. “Marley, look,” he said sternly. “My brother has forgiven you, so just leave it there. Once he makes up his mind, he doesn’t change it because he’s stupidly stubborn.”

Marley laughed uncertainly, only to stop when someone called her name. Her eyes widened considerably and she turned towards the young nurse before looking back at the twins. “Well, I’m sorry about running into you, but it was nice to meet you...”

”Barry,” Barry finished. “Barry Allen.”

Marley nodded. “Goodbye, Barry Allen,” she said shyly. Then, she turned on her heel and walked to where the nurse was waiting for her.

Once she disappeared from sight, Barry shared a look with his brother and they started bursting out in laughter. They drew looks from other visitors and patients, but they didn’t care. This was the first time Barry had laughed so hard since his accident, and it felt amazing.

Alicia rolled her eyes at the twins fondly. “Come on, boys,” she ordered. “To the car!”

 Getting into the car wasn’t as hard as one might think, at least in Barry’s opinion. Sebastian might think differently. Barry was gripping his brother’s arm so hard that he probably left a bruise.

After everyone was settled in the car, Alicia pulled out of the hospital parking lot. Barry tapped his fingers on his leg anxiously as they drove. He watched the other cars at every intersection, making sure they were slowing down and stopping where they were supposed to.

Once, a car had looked like it wasn’t slowing down, which completely freaked Barry out. He yelled at Alicia to stop the car and while she didn’t completely stop, she did slow down. Luckily, there were no other cars behind them. After Barry calmed down and his heart didn’t feel like it was going to beat out of his chest, he felt like an idiot. He couldn’t even make it through a car ride without having a breakdown. He didn’t say anything the rest of the way to the airport.

Traveling by plane wasn’t ideal in Barry’s current state, but they decided that a two or three hour flight was better than a twenty hour car ride. 

As they walked through the airport, people stared and whispered. Barry felt incredibly self-conscious, especially when a young girl asked her mother very loudly what had happened to his leg. The mother gave Barry and apologetic look and then gestures to her daughter as if saying, “There’s nothing I can do about that.” Barry returned her look with a small smile and a shaky thumbs up.

The only thing worse than that was going through the airport security check. Since he was in a wheelchair, one of the officers were required to give him a pat down. It was weird, to say the least, but the only real bad part was everyone in front of and behind them were sending him looks that ranged from discomfort to pity. He wished he could hide. Unfortunately, he had to endure the whole thing with everyone judging him.

Once that ordeal was over, they were finally able to find their gate. It had taken them long enough to get through security that people were already getting on the plane. In fact, they were the last ones to get board.

Before Barry could get on, he had to be moved to an aisle chair, which was basically like a skinny wheelchair with a high back and a lot of straps. It was rather uncomfortable, but he only had to be in it for a minute as they went through the jet bridge and found their seats. They had chosen four in the very back of the plane, close to the bathroom.

Once they arrived at their row of seats, Barry carefully transferred from the aisle chair to the window seat and Sebastian took the spot right next to him. Alicia and Jean sat in the two seats opposite them.

Jean moved the aisle chair into a small space behind their seats, so Sebastian could get it out if Barry needed it to use the bathroom. Barry wasn’t sure where his real wheelchair was, only that it was in some closet where they keep collapsible chairs like his.

The disabled teen didn’t listen as the flight attendant gave her spiel about safety and whatever else she may have been talking about. Instead, he worked on getting comfortable, which was a difficult task for a one and a half-legged person in the confines of airport seats. Much of his therapy at Central City hospital had been strengthening, but the other bits had been things like how to sit in a chair, how to lay down properly, and how to turn over in bed without pain. Now Barry wishes he had paid more attention.

He examined what was left of his leg carefully, as he had done several times before. He had been required to wear shorts out of the hospital because they were the easiest to put on and wouldn’t put any unnecessary pressure on the stump where his leg used to be. A shrinker was squeezing the stub, making it slightly uncomfortable. However, thanks to therapy and daily massaging, the bottom of his leg had stopped being so sensitive. The residual limb was in the process of being prepared for a prosthetic leg, so the shrinker and the therapy were necessary.

Barry was so focused on his leg that he didn’t realize they were about to take off until the flight attendant told him to put on his seatbelt with a fake smile on her face. He did what she said quickly before pulling a blanket and earbuds out of his carry on bag. After they were in the air and clear to use electronics, Barry plugged his phone into his earbuds and started playing the playlist he’d compiled the day before.

It was probably the most random group of songs he had ever put together. There were a few fairly recent songs, but a majority of them were either Michael Jackson or show tunes.

Barry relaxed into his seat as Randy Graff’s soothing voice filled his ears. He rested his head on Sebastian’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He was asleep within minutes.

Sebastian ducked his head slightly to look at his sleeping brother. When Barry slept, he looked so much younger and more peaceful. It was as if all of his worry and stress melted away as soon as his eyes shut.

Unfortunately, the peace wouldn’t last for long. Sebastian knew that Barry would eventually have to wake up and face what happened and what is going to happen now. And he’s not sure if either one of them is ready for it.

Sighing, Sebastian rested his head on Barry’s and let himself sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said at the beginning of the chapter, let me know if I got stuff wrong because the only knowledge of amputation and amputees comes from small amounts of research and a guy named Josh Sundquist. He is an amazing motivational speaker and ridiculously funny, so if you get the chance, look him up on YouTube or Instagram or wherever else you can find him.


End file.
